Of late identity fraud has become a worrying concern. Identity fraud and theft resulting therefrom are on the rise and are considered to be one of the fastest growing crimes in North America. Criminals are increasingly using false, stolen, or forged identification documents to commit thefts and other crimes. In some cases, real identification documents have been altered to create a fake identity for a thief. In other cases, false identification documents have been manufactured using sophisticated design technologies. In some instances, the names featured on these identification documents match the real names of unsuspecting, law-abiding citizens. Government organizations and other identity document issuing authorities have attempted to foil these identity thieves and forgers by incorporating security features (i.e. such holographic images, special watermarks, etc.) in the identity documents. While these enhanced security features may tend to initially stymie forgers, in the long run, forgers find ways to circumvent these security features.
At present, most identity verification procedures rely on a physical inspection of the identification documents presented by an individual. Those who carry out these inspections may have had very little training or be generally ill-equipped to identity forgeries. Even when adequately trained, such inspectors may still be duped by elaborate forgeries. As a result, such inspections which rely on a subjective examination of the physical identity document tend to be unreliable. In any event, these inspections tend to focus on authenticating the identity document or artifact and not the identity featured on the identity document, which is ultimately what is required.
Identity verifications procedures which are based on verifying the correctness of identifying information of the individual (i.e. name, date of birth, address, social security number or social insurance number, passport number, etc.) exist and are routinely used by police and other security professionals to authenticate identity. However, such systems tend to typically require access to government or other third party data provider records or databases (which access may be restricted for reasons of privacy and security). Moreover, such systems tend be very expensive to deploy because of the need to accommodate different platforms used by the data sources and may be highly customized to suit the needs of the requestor. As a result, such identity verification systems tend to be out of reach or not generally available or accessible to members of the public or businesses at large.
In light of the foregoing, it would be desirable to have an effective identity verification solution; one that that could be broadly implemented in businesses at large and that could be commonly used by a plurality of different users to verify the identity of individuals prior to the completion of a commercial transaction, such as a purchase, rental or lease. Preferably, such a system would be secure and would not compromise an individual's right to privacy. It would be further advantageous if such a system were capable of verifying an individual's identity using a plurality of data sources and of returning a response to such verification in good time. Such a system would tend to allow identity verification to be carried out in an efficient and cost-effective manner and would tend to make identity verification services more accessible to the public.